Om Shanti, Babe Read online

  Some kids playing football ran along beside the tracks, waving as the train passed. I leant out of the carriage and waved back at them.

  We were going to stay with Lula’s old college friend, Saachi. Lula said she had a daughter, Priyanka, who was my age, so there would be someone to hang out with at last. I’d thought about what she’d be like and I was sure she’d be really nice, and excited to have an English friend to teach her dance routines!

  I’d wrapped up some colourful bracelets I’d found in a shop on Oxford street in tissue paper, and written To my new friend, love Cass on it in gold pen. I tried to picture Priyanka’s face as she opened the package. She’d be really happy to have something pretty from a big city shop. She probably didn’t have any proper fashionable stuff.

  I tried to imagine what she would look like and how she would talk. I would lend her my iPod and she’d definitely want to hear all about my life in London. I wondered if she’d have her own room – probably not.

  Perhaps she could come and stay with us some time. I could show her our flat, the telly, and the dishwasher. I could tell her about all the cool stuff me and my friends used to do at the weekends. I wouldn’t miss Rachel and the others at all if I had an Indian friend to show around.

  The train lurched slightly as we crossed a gap in the tracks, and I felt the hard thump of the door swinging into my back. The jolt made me lose my footing on the outside step and, before I could do anything to stop myself, I was sliding slowly but surely into the view.

  I scrabbled to get a grip on the floor, but my hands just skidded through the dust. Just as I was about to be pitched out of the train, there was a sharp pain in my arm and I felt a hand clamp my wrist in a tight hold. I opened my mouth to scream, but I was being dragged back through the dirt on my bum and all I heard was the train door as it slammed shut behind me.

  ‘That was very foolish.’ A local boy, about my age, was staring down at me. ‘You might have been killed and you have made me spill my chai.’

  He had dropped one of the paper cups he was carrying and it lay crumpled on the ground. Puddles of milky Indian tea had formed around his feet and mixed with the dirt on the train floor. The unappetising brew was sloshing in my direction.

  I tried to stand up but my legs suddenly wouldn’t work properly. As I looked up at him, he took a step closer and I leaned away, pressing my back against the sharp edge of the carriage door.

  ‘Here,’ he said, and handed me a cup half-full of warm chai.

  My hands were shaking too much to hold the cup properly, and as I gulped down a mouthful, I felt some dribble down my chin and on to my T-shirt.

  The boy was still staring down at me. ‘Where are you coming from?’ he said.

  ‘Kochi.’

  ‘No, your native place.’

  ‘Oh, London.’ My throat felt tight and my voice sounded a bit squeaky.

  ‘If you are ever wanting to get back, you must fasten the door properly.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I squeaked again.

  ‘What is your name, girl from London?’

  ‘Cassia.’

  ‘Hello, Cassia, my name is Porthos.’

  ‘Really? Like in The Three Musketeers?’

  ‘No! Really my name is Dev. I just like the story.’ He was smiling now. ‘May I sit with you?’

  ‘I’ve got some food. We could share it,’ I said, pointing to Auntie Lalitha’s picnic.

  I was covered in dirt and his clothes weren’t exactly designer, but there was a newspaper in the bin which I unfolded on to the floor. The spilled chai soaked through in patches, but at least it wasn’t running all over the carriage. I mopped my hands on my jeans and unsnapped the lid of the tiffin tin. On the top layer sat three coconut cookies. I passed one over to the boy and, as the sugar hit my stomach, I started feeling less shaky.

  ‘What do you do, Cassia?’

  ‘I help my mum with our shop.’

  He was staring at me. I felt my face getting hotter. I didn’t know if it was shock or because he was really handsome. Maybe this was how Lula felt when she looked at Call-me-V. That thought made me feel shaky again. I took another big gulp of chai.

  ‘Why are you not at school?’

  ‘I’m going to be a dancer.’

  ‘How will you learn to dance if you don’t study?’

  ‘I don’t mean ballet, I like more modern stuff like street dance and Bollywood.’

  ‘Really?’ Dev said with a puzzled look.

  ‘Yes, really! What do you want to do?’

  ‘Computers and world-class cricket,’ he said. ‘But for now my job is to rescue foolish tourist girls.’

  ‘Thank you for saving me.’

  ‘That is OK, you are nearly family.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your mehandi. I can see from the initials that you will be marrying my grandfather.’

  ‘Ha ha! Mr Lifesaver!’

  He stared out of the window, rubbing at the dust on the glass with his fingers. I thought he was going to say something else, but he must have changed his mind.

  We had pulled into a station and I realised it was time to go back to my seat. I thought about spending the rest of my holiday with Lula and Call-me-V and for a few seconds I imagined running away with Dev instead. He was probably sitting in third class, but I expected it was more fun there with people chatting and hanging out. Maybe I’d make some new friends.

  Then I remembered Saachi’s daughter would be waiting in Malabar, and I imagined giving her the bracelets and swimming in the sea all day and teaching her how to dance like me. She’d be so disappointed if I didn’t show up.

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Musketeer. I have to go now.’

  ‘Chal, goodbye, Cassia from London. I will tell my grandfather he is making a good match.’

  I watched as he disappeared down the corridor. Then I carefully flattened the paper cup and put it into the pocket of my jeans.

  Lula and Call-me-V were awake when I got back to our seats. He dragged our cases off the racks and we Excuse me’d our way towards the exit. Dev had gone and the sticky puddle of chai was already evaporating in the midday heat.

  I got off the train feeling very crumpled and a bit sweaty. The platform was heaving with people, but no one seemed to be in a hurry.

  ‘Good grief, Cass, look at you! How on earth did you get that mucky on a train?’ Lula asked.

  I looked down at my torn, dust-coated jeans and filthy finger-nails. How many layers of shoe dirt had they scraped up as I slid towards a mangling on the tracks? And what if Dev hadn’t been there?

  We took a taxi from the station to the village. Call-me-V sat in the front, chatting with the driver. He hadn’t brought any bags with him, but it looked like he would be hanging around for a while longer. I wondered if this was just part of his looking-after-us job or because he and Lula had a romance going on. I expect she paid him really well – maybe that was why he was sticking so close to her.

  The taxi stopped in front of a wooden building. Windows set high into the walls reflected birds squawking in the surrounding trees. It looked like a really massive garden shed.

  ‘Is this where they live?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh no, Cass, Saachi’s house is right down by the beach. This is one of Vikram’s new projects. He wanted us to see it before it gets renovated.’

  Call-me-V took a key out of his pocket and fitted it into a padlock on the door. The wood creaked and the door swung open on a dusty room.

  ‘This used to be a candle-making workshop – the old equipment has to be cleared out. But isn’t it a lovely space, Cass?’ Lula was practically skipping about and I could tell she had her decorator head on. ‘Vikram’s got great plans for this building,’ she said.

  I looked around at the shed. It didn’t even have a proper floor. Hanging from hooks on the wall were big metal cooking pots and a thick layer of wax was caked on the wooden workbench. I ran my thumbnail across the yellow lumps and the smell of honey seeped into the air. Although
it was a dump, the smell in the shed reminded me of Auntie Doré’s super-cool dining room with its rows of expensive scented candles.

  I wondered if Call-me-V was rich like Auntie Doré. He didn’t look rich, but maybe rich people in India acted the same as everyone else. What did he do, besides driving Lula about? I tried not to stare as I imagined him in an office like Dad’s, or at a really fancy restaurant with friends.

  He glanced over at Lula and I swear she actually blushed. This was getting gruesome, worse than gruesome. Lula skipped about a bit more, talking about earth-tone palettes and rustic surfaces while Call-me-V smiled at her like she was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen. Then, from her handbag Lula produced a packet of incense sticks.

  ‘Ah, you think we should have a Puja, Luella, m’n?’ said Call-me-V. He passed her a tiny elephant statue attached to his keys. ‘I will get some flowers,’ he said and walked out.

  ‘What is a Puja?’ I said.

  ‘A sort of spiritual housewarming, and request to the Gods for help with our new enterprise.’ She looked wistful when she said it, and then her face went all pink again as Call-me-V came back in with a bunch of blooms I’d seen hanging from a tree by the door. They put the statue on the workbench and laid the flowers in front of it.

  ‘We must wash our hands first,’ said Call-me-V, opening a rusty tap on the wall.

  Brownish water dribbled into a bucket on the floor. It took a while to run clear and they both rinsed their hands. I stuck my hands in my pockets. Then Lula lit the incense and waved the scented smoke in the air while Call-me-V muttered some stuff I couldn’t understand. When I couldn’t stand any more, I sat outside, watching the taxi driver smoke cigarettes and talk on his mobile phone. He was having a huge argument with someone.

  Lula and Call-me-V came out eventually, and we got back in the taxi. I sat in the front this time and the driver found a music station to listen to. I asked him to turn it up really loud, but even though I couldn’t hear Lula and Call-me-V, I could see them reflected in the rear-view mirror, scribbling drawings and numbers and stuff in the shop order book.

  I wondered what they were doing. The shop wasn’t Call-me-V’s business, it was Lula’s. But when they did the shed Puja, Lula talked about their new enterprise like it had something to do with her, too.

  Lula’s friend, Saachi, and her daughter, Priyanka, were standing outside their house waiting to meet us. Parked in the drive was a car that made the Green Goddess look like a joke.

  When I saw Priyanka, looking like something straight off a film poster, my heart dropped into my grubby shoes and stayed there. I knew the train journey hadn’t done my outfit any favours, but compared with Priyanka I looked like a charity advert. Why hadn’t Lula told me she was rich, beautiful, perfect?

  Lula was so pleased to see her that she nearly knocked her over. ‘Look at you, bonny girl! You’ve grown so much since last time I saw you. This is my daughter, Cassia,’ she said, pushing me forward.

  Priyanka smiled and smoothed down the spotless silk top stretched tight over her round stomach. Her long, super-straight, advert-perfect hair was pulled back into a clip that matched the colours of her outfit. She had a friendly smile, but I saw her staring at my torn jeans. I tried to force myself to smile back, but my mouth wouldn’t work properly.

  Saachi said, ‘Hello, Cassia, I’ve heard so much about you,’ and, ‘Don’t you look like your dad!’ And then she suggested we all go inside to freshen up.

  I thought Lula would introduce Call-me-V, but it was obvious pretty quickly that they all knew each other already. I was the only new person, the stranger, the one who needed to be introduced.

  It felt like Lula had this secret Kerala life that I had just barged into. And now, as we walked into the massive marble hallway, she was practising her Malayalam with Priyanka while Saachi talked with Call-me-V. Everyone was talking and smiling at each other – everyone except me.

  If Rachel hadn’t been so angry with me I’d be at school now, and all this would be going on a million miles away. I betted that Lula would have preferred it. Then she could have hung out with perfect Priyanka instead of me, with my grubby clothes and rubbish hair.

  Priyanka’s room was at the back of the house. From her balcony there was a postcard-perfect view of the sea. I put my scruffy suitcase on the guest bed. The present I’d got her was in the bottom of my wash-bag. As I looked around the room, I could see she already had loads of much prettier bracelets just heaped up on her dressing table. She had lots of other stuff I hadn’t expected her to have too. I left the wash-bag in my case. Why would she be interested in my rubbish present?

  Priyanka wanted to show me round, but I just wanted to get to get away from everyone, including her. I unpacked my swimming costume and stomped down to the water with Priyanka following behind.

  ‘Don’t go out too far, Cassia. Actually, it is quite dangerous once you get past the breakers!’ Priyanka called out in a bossy voice as I marched across the sand.

  I ignored her and ran as fast as I could into the water. I would show her. I body-surfed a couple of small waves, landing gently back in the shallows. Priyanka sat neatly on the sand like one of Lula’s plump and very pretty sofa cushions.

  The sky was a bright, clear blue and I floated on my back to watch the tiniest of clouds float by. Now this was more like it, I thought, as I ducked and splashed about in the warm, salty water. Maybe I could just stay in the sea for ever and forget about everything until it was time to go home. But then I remembered things were completely rubbish there, too.

  ‘Stop fooling around, Cassia. There is a big wave coming!’ Priyanka shouted.

  I turned to look. She was wrong about the wave. It wasn’t big, it was VERY big.

  I tried to dive under the swell, but it caught me full in the belly and knocked me off my feet. I tumbled over and over in the pounding water. All the air had been punched out of my lungs, my chest was aching and I was starting to think seriously about panicking. Then, its fun done, the ocean dumped me on the beach like a sack of wet washing. I spat out a mouthful of fish-bath. Through my stinging eyes I could see Priyanka laughing at me. I emptied sand out of my costume.

  Priyanka handed me a beach towel as I dragged myself out of the water. I must have looked even more pathetic than when I arrived. Had she waited to tell me about the wave until it was too late? At least the scouring had got my hands clean.

  The mehandi had faded a little, too, and that made me think of Jonny Gold and Dev and being rescued, and I started to feel very sorry for myself and had to go back to the sea to splash more water on my face.

  Priyanka kept talking to me about how great it was to meet me at last, but for a while I pretended the water in my ears had made me deaf. I knew I was being mean, but I couldn’t stop. She just wasn’t what I was expecting.

  I lay face-down on the sand and let the hot sun bake me dry. I hoped it would burn out the bad feeling that was building up in my stomach. I really needed a friend, someone who would like me, so why did I get landed with Princess Perfect who had all the jewellery she needed and didn’t like swimming?

  When we got back to the house, Priyanka told me Saachi had arranged a Welcome to the Malabar party and that some of the neighbours were invited. She said she would fix my hair and lend me an Indian outfit until I got my crumpled clothes sorted out. She had chosen a long top and baggy trousers she called a salwar kameez in emerald green, to ‘complement my eyes’.

  Of course it also matched the shade of envy I felt when I saw her amazing collection of clothes. It was in three sections, one she called ‘sarees-for-the-aunties’, then there was a rack of salwar tops for everyday over jeans and, just to make me feel really tragic, she had a western, designer selection for holidays abroad. None of it had any creases, rips, loose threads, or stains of any kind. It was also grouped and ranked by colour and shade.

  She laid the outfit on my bed and waited for me to try it on. Even though it was really pretty I didn’t want to w
ear it, but she kept on at me until I agreed, just to shut her up.

  ‘What is this grunge-meets-high-street look you favour, Cassia? Is it very on-trend in the UK right now?’ she asked, watching me dress.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘All the celebs are leaving their clothes scrunched up in a bag for a week before they wear them.’

  ‘It must be fabulous to be so close to the heart of fashion, Cassia.’

  ‘Yes. It’s terrific,’ I said.

  The party wasn’t totally in our honour. There was something going on in the village that had everyone up a height, and Saachi had got a protest group started. She and Lula had been deep in ‘Do you remember when...’ ever since we’d arrived, so Call-me-V and Princess Priyanka had taken over as party-planners, with me as their scruffy assistant.

  Working from a hand-written, double-sided list (yes, that’s right, a list!), we arranged chairs out on the veranda and set a row of anti-mosquito coils burning. Multi-coloured paper lanterns hung in the garden and we filled them with tea-lights. Priyanka had arranged with her mum that we could have a canopy in the garden for the ‘young folk’, and we carried out rugs and cushions from the house.

  All the guests were bringing food and something to drink, so by early evening all we had left to do was cut and clean the banana palm leaves we would use as plates. This was a super-green solution for party plates and best of all, no washing-up! Of course, first someone had to shimmy up a palm tree and hack off a couple of branches and it seemed I’d been volunteered.

  Priyanka pointed to the rope foot-rests circling the trunk at regular stages. The palm tree was bent over, and towards the top the trunk ran almost parallel to the ground.